"So what do we do?" Jumo asked, frightened all over again. Why had he thought an old priestess and a dwarf could save Lazar's life? He should have brought his friend to a city physic, he berated himself. Helplessly, he hung his head just as a shadow darkened the entrance of the temple.

"I'm sorry," Zafira said from the ground where she knelt. "You've come at a trying time, as you can see."

"I do see." The new visitor was a woman. She was soft-spoken and her voice had a musical quality as she asked, "May I come in? Perhaps I might help?"

Jumo watched the hooded figure step out of the doorway, where she was encircled by the light of the sun, into the shadows. Although she was petite, her presence seemed to pulse with an aura of authority. Somehow none of them could deny her access to Lazar.

She knelt beside him, making a soft sound of concern. She pushed back her hood and Jumo noticed first her pale hair, which he assumed must have been golden when she was young. As she turned to face him, he saw that the woman was indeed older, skin like beautiful ivory parchment, unblemished except for the handsome lines of time. Somehow she seemed familiar, though Jumo could not determine from where. The deep kindness she conveyed as she looked at him eased his despair even though her words did not. "He will slip beyond us within hours," she said gravely.

Jumo felt his heart sink. "Can you help him?"

"He is very close to death. I should have seen something like this coming." This last she said beneath her breath but Pez's sharp hearing caught it, and he frowned, puzzled. He glanced toward Zafira, who wore a similar expression of bafflement. They both snatched a look at Jumo but Lazar's friend was concentrating deeply, his entire focus given over to the old woman.

"There is poison," he confirmed, and she nodded, leaning close to Lazar's back and sniffing. Then she nodded again, deep in thought. "I think this is drezden. A nasty, debilitating concoction. Normally, it's administered orally to a healthy persona"death follows within hours. It has a distinctive spicy smell, reminiscent of cloveacan you detect it?" All three shook their heads dumbly. "You've all been a bit preoccupied," she offered kindly. "In this instance the drezden has been administered topically via the weapon used to flog him. It is not an effective way to deliver the poison, but as you can see by the tracks, it is working, albeit slowly. This is our single hope."

"He can beat it?" Jumo asked hopefully.

The old woman paused. "Unlikely, and his horrific injuries will probably kill him first." She gave him a look of genuine sorrow. "I'm sorry, Jumo. We will try to save him, but you should know we will probably fail."

Pez noticed that she used Jumo's name, making a friend of him, and yet they had not been introduced. "Do we know you?"

"In a way," she said, indicating that they should lay the wet linens back in place. "Those will need to be kept constantly damp."

"I have never met you before," Pez said, a soft challenge in his tone.

"Ah, but you have, friend Pez. Remember a red silk ribbon?"

His initial curiozity curdled to shock. The Bundle Woman! She looked different and yet, now that he thought about it, somehow the same. She was not as old as she had originally appeared to him.

"How do you know my name?" Jumo suddenly asked.

"I know all of your names. You are Jumo, this is Pez, and"a"she bowed her head slightlya""here we have a sister, Zafira."

"You are a priestess?" Zafira exclaimed, obvious delight in her voice.

The old woman smiled but said nothing until she looked down upon their patient. "And this is Lazar, whom we shall probably lose but not without a fight." Her words reassured Jumo, even though he could almost hear the death knell for the man he loved.

"What have you given him?" the woman continued.

"The root of calzen," Zafira answered, "to ease his pain, not that it can really deaden this sort of pain. I couldn't risk a soporific."

"The right decision," the woman assured her. "I cannot do anything here. We have to move him."

"Is it safe to?" Pez inquired.

"Lazar is dying, Pez. Nothing we do can make much of a difference unless I can get him to the Isle of Stars."

"The leper colony?" Jumo exclaimed, voicing the shock Pez and Zafira also felt.

The stranger shrugged. "It's safe and no one will find him there."

"Is it not dangerous to risk the leper colony?" Zafira asked, unable to mask her incredulity.

"I doubt it. There are only a few inhabitants and none that will trouble us."

"Who are you?" Pez demanded.

"Questions, questions!" The woman smiled and the warmth made their hearts feel instantly lighter. "I will answer them all but I have a precious man's life in the balance. Please, help me get him to the island, although I suspect, Pez, that you should return to the palace."

Pez knew he would be missed at the palace and that was courting danger. "Yes buta""

"Go, brother Pez. You cannot help Lazar any more than you have. I promise we shall get word to you, and besides, I gather I have some questions to answer for you." Again her gentle smile prevented Pez from pushing further.

He touched Lazar gently on his blood-streaked face and then was moved to bend close and kiss his forehead.

"I shall see you again, my friend," he whispered, and with one sad glance toward the others, he left the temple.

As he wended his way back to the palace, Pez pondereda"among the many confusing aspects of todaya"the few moments when he was sure he had lost consciousness. It had happened during Lazar's flogging. Pez realized that one moment he had been dashing at high speed from the temple to find Jumo again, and the next he was out cold on the roadside. No one had bothered with him and the dwarf had regained his wits slowly, uninterrupted by curious passersby. He could not account for the fainting spell, or what might have occurred during it. The sudden weakness made him uncomfortable.

And now the Bundle Woman returning to his life. Could she save Lazar? She'd convinced Jumo she could not, even though their friend still breathed, still clung to life. But she had soothed them all too. What skill, to comfort in the face of certain suffering.

Although Pez returned to the palace counting loudly in Merlinean, he was deeply confused and anxious, but no one noticed. It was what they were used to.

19.

Ana was hurried away from the Courtyard of Sorrows and taken directly to a sleeping chamber, which, she realized, she must be sharing with three other girls. The four beds being tidied by a slave suggested as much. The Elim passed Ana into the care of an older woman who had presumably been waiting for her.

"She's in shock," the woman commented, looking at her.

Horz, who had accompanied Ana and tried to soothe her, had been ignored by the odalisque, blamed by him, in fact, for what had befallen Lazar. He spoke quietly to the slave. "She will need your carea"perhaps something gentle to help her rest. As you know, she has been out all night and this afternoon she witnessed something no child should see. It has been difficult for her."

The slave nodded. "Come, child, Elza will take care of you now." She held out her hand to Ana. "You are safe, my girl. It will be just the two of us."

Ana gratefully obeyed, glad to rid herself of the eunuch escort. "Does he live?" she demanded of the Elim before they left.

"I doubt it," Horz said softly, and again Ana refused the sympathy she saw in his unhappy eyes. "No one could survive that."

"Please, leave us now," Elza said, and turned back to Ana. "Let me take that bloodied veil off you," the woman said kindly.

"My name is Ana," she replied, glaring again at the head of the Elim, who still remained, looking surprisingly awkward.

Horz's presence seemed to distress Ana, and Elza glanced sharply at him. "You should leave her alone with me now, please." He and the other Elim did so silently.

Ana relaxed slightly once they had departed. "I want to keep this," she said suddenly, rolling the veil into a ball, as if by doing so, she could stifle the pain of Lazar's potential death within it. She could not think about such a grievous outcome right now.

"What?" the woman exclaimed. "This messy thing? Whatever for?"

Ana had no desire to let anyone know that Lazar's blooda"her only physical connection with hima"meant more to her than anything else. To cast the veil away would feel like casting him away. Keeping the droplets of his blood was ghoulish, she knew, but they were all she had. She would shed no more tears over this man. Though she hardly understood her feelings, she believed she loved Lazara"would never love anyone with the same intensity she felt for him.

Ana had chided herself the previous night, telling herself that her heart was deceiving her. She was so young and she guessed Lazar was a man of almost thirty, maybe older. It was a ludicrous situation, but she could not control the rapid thumping of her heart every time the man was near. Although they had not spent much time together, she could re-create the feel of her hand in his, the smile she worked so hard to win on his face, the softening of his expression when their eyes met. She could bring to life in her mind the rich timbre of his voice with its foreign lilt. And the warmth of his body standing next to her the night before in the Choosing Rooma"it had felt to her as if a furnace had burned between them. She had risked leaning closer to hima"in front of Herezaha"just to feel the hardness of his body.

She had wondered long and deep, as she prayed to Lyana in the temple, whether it was wrong of her to desire Lazar. But she felt powerless in his presence. Where Salmeo's touch caused her entire being to clamp shut, just a glance from Lazar achieved the opposite effect. She felt overwhelmed by the flood of desire, tempted to act upon it, though she knew not how.

Lazar, she appreciated, had not once in their brief encounters behaved in anything other than an entirely appropriate manner. Even when he had let his guard down in the bazaar, his treatment of her had remained dignified. In Ana's moments of reflection, she had wondered if she was reading far too much into their few interactions. And yet this afternoon, in the Courtyard of Sorrows, she had felt their bond as a tangible link and she had known that she was right. She was not lying to herself. As he had borne her punishment, she heard him whisper her name. He had spoken to her alone and he had been prepared to give his life for hera"it was too much, more than she deserved. And now, because of her, he might be dead. She forced herself to believe otherwise, cast a prayer to Lyana, made a bargain with the Goddess: Let him survive and I will make no further claim on him. I will not pursue him and I will not encourage him. I will remain steadfast to my duty and cold to any entreaties I should be fortunate to win from him.

Looking at the veil, Ana realized that Elza was still waiting for an answer. Pez's warning to trust no one resonated loudly in her thoughts. "This was part of my first formal occasion in the harem. It's a special keepsake for me."

"How grim of you, child. Very wella"put it away and don't frighten the other girls with it. That's your bed over there."

"By the window?" Ana was surprised. "I would have thought that one would be taken already."

"Peza"the Zar's mad jestera"came and slept on it last night. He refused to leave it until the girls got tired of asking."

"Oh?"

"And then he said he'd put a curse on the bed and the others got so frightened I had to shoo that terrible dwarf away. Have you seen him yet?" Elza didn't wait for Ana to answer, continuing, "He's such a fool. But the young Zar loves him as much as his father before him did. I don't see the charm, myself. I think Pez is a nuisance and I'm sorry you're left with a cursed bed."

"I have seen him," Ana replied carefully. "How did the women before us like him?"

"Oh, well enough. He entertained them. He's harmless, I suppose, but he disrupted those children so much they could hardly settle."

Ana had to suppress a smile. She knew Pez had chosen that bed just for her. It was easily in the best position in the whole chamber. "Well, I'm not afraid of any curse."

"That's the spirit," Elza said, though she wasn't paying much attention to Ana's words, mostly glad the girl seemed unscathed by the afternoon's ordeal. "You've had your Test of Virtue, haven't you?" At Ana's nod, she continued briskly, "Good. Let's get you into a warm bath. Put this robe on and come with me. You're in for a special experience."

Ana slipped into the silken robe, feeling the soft touch of it against her skin, and then begged a moment to tuck Lazar's Veila"as she thought of ita"beneath her pillow. He would always sleep close to her now.

THEY HAD ROWED in silence through the late afternoon. Jumo worked the oars while Zafira fussed over the unconscious Spur; the stranger sat with her back to the rest of them, chanting beneath her breath as if in prayer.

She spoke suddenly, interrupting their thoughts. "Can you row close to Beloch?"

"The waves might dash us against the giant," Jumo warned. The sea wasn't rough, but he was put out by her odd request when time was so against them.

"Beloch will not hurt us."

Jumo mumbled a protest but steered them closer to the giant, who loomed, massive, over their tiny boat. "Why must you do this?"

"I want to speak to him," she answered, and she did just that, balancing herself precariously as the boat rocked perilously. None of her companions understood what she said to the giant, for she murmured her words beneath her breath.

Jumo scowled. "We'll all drown."

The old woman smiled serenely at him. "Thank you. It meant a lot to me that I could do this."

"Do you speak to the giant each time you go to the island?" he asked.

"No," she said, her voice suddenly detached, as if her thoughts were far away from them. "I have never rowed to the island before."

Jumo, annoyed and confused, wisely held his tongue.

"WE REQUIRE NO REFRESHMENT," Zar Boaz said to Bin, dismissing the servant but also, to his frustration, revealing that none of his wrath had dissipated. He knew he must learn to disguise his emotions if he was to emulate his father. Frowning, he looked at Salmeo and Tariq, who stood before him. Immediately the two bowed.

Boaz did not acknowledge their courtesy. He reined in his anger and steadied his voice. "Have we heard any more?"

The Grand Master Eunuch adopted a look of concern. "No, Majesty. I dealt with the pig Inflictor," he lied, "who had no skill at all for his chosen career."

Boaz nodded. "Where were the senior Inflictorsa"Shaz cannot be all that we have in the palace?"

Salmeo shook his head, his frown deepening. "No, Great One, that's right, but the two senior Inflictors were unavailable. The Head Inflictor was not in the city itself and his deputy was sick; we had no option but to use Shaz. Would you like me to have him punished?"

"Not especially. I would prefer that you punish his seniors who were not present. We cannot have the head and his deputy both unavailable. It is unforgivable!"

Boaz instantly regretted calling this meeting while his emotions were still raw. Seeing his friend so broken had sickened him sufficiently that when he had strode from the balcony, he had actually lost his morning's meal into the bushes not far from his chambers. Mercifully, with no guards on the balcony with them, no one but his mother had been privy to this show of weakness and she had sensibly said nothing, simply offered him a linen to wipe his mouth.

"I'm retiring for the day, Boaz" were her only words, and hearing the slight quaver in her voice, he knew that Herezah was as sickened as he. She had learned to control her physical reactions and he vowed to do the same. Once again he privately acknowledged that no matter how much she frustrated him, she still had plenty to teach him, and his father had been politically astute to choose her as his favorite. In response to her words, he had nodded but also risked taking and squeezing her hand in thanks. He knew she would share with no one his embarrassing show of distress.

Salmeo cleared his throat and Boaz was returned from his thoughts. "Shall I punish them, High One?"

"What would you suggest?" Boaz privately admonished himself as he watched Salmeo's eyes narrow, and knew he was being tested by the Grand Master Eunuch.

"There are a few different options, depending on how far you feel this punishment should extend, Majesty," Salmeo replied carefully, deliberately being evasive while cornering the Zar into ordering someone's demise. "Are you calling for death?"

Boaz took a deep breath. "If the Spur does not survive the flogging, Grand Master Eunuch, then one of the Inflictors must pay for their collective failing with his own life."

"The choice is minea"is that what you're saying, High One?"

Boaz hated Salmeo in that moment. He fixed him with a stare he'd seen the old Zar give many times when his ire was upa"and used the moment to decide whether or not he could back down; there was a man's life at stake but he was still privately enraged at the suffering of his friend the Spur, when his flogging, as a protector, was meant to be more symbolic than anything as sinister as it had become. No, he could not turn back now. His tone was cutting when he spoke again. "We're both speaking Percherese, Grand Master Eunuch. I'm sure you understand my order."

Salmeo bowed, disturbed by the Zar's sudden confidence. "As you command, Majesty."

"Where has the Spur been taken? Tariq, I wish my personal doctors to attend him."

Tariq's jewels glinted on the ends of his quivering beard. Really, this sort of task was below him but he supposed he ought to ingratiate himself with the Zar. "Of course, High One, I will seek that information for you. Is there anything else I can do, Your Majesty?" Tariq all but felt Salmeo's sneer.

"That will be sufficient. Where is Odalisque Ana?"

Salmeo answered. "The Elim escorted her to her chambers to bathe and rest after her night's adventures. Her clothes were bloodied, you know."

Boaz privately felt the girl should rest. "Bring her to my private study. Immediately."

"Yes, High One." Salmeo bowed to avoid revealing his expression of surprise. "Should I inform the Valide ofa""

"My mother," Boaz began, unable to control his rising temper now, "has absolutely nothing to do with this. You would be well advised, Grand Master Eunuch, to learn to do my bidding without questioning it. I will not warn you again. I might be young, Salmeo, but I am the highest authority in this realm. Or are you already placing your loyalty in the wrong place?"